


Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

by stars_and_shadows



Series: Moments That Don't Particularly Matter but Exist Nonetheless [3]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Conversations, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Morally Ambiguous Character, Post Legion Camp Destruction, Pre-Lonesome Road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 13:27:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8015734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_and_shadows/pseuds/stars_and_shadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vulpes Inculta and Courier Six reconcile, even if their was nothing to fix, only bridges to build. </p><p>She would like to believe that he is not all bad, that he can change his ways, his morals. That he could eventually, be a decent man, it had been done before. He would like to think that she is still human beneath all the blood on her hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Vulpes, indeed, could say that it was no surprise to have run into the Courier again, even after all this time had passed since back then and now. If he was being honest, he'd thought, by chance, that they would have found the other sooner.

A relationship such as theirs was as complicated as it was intriguing. 

She stared, shock still, body-rigid slender fingers wrapped around her gun. A weathered pistol, but he could not distinguish the make or model from beneath the grime. Pity, he thought, she needed to keep her weapons cleaned, higher chance for a jam if she didn't. 

The skinny katana at her hip was much more of a staple of that battle, anyways, he'd never known a man, certainly not a woman, who could wield such as she. 

It surprised Vulpes that he wasn't disgusted by the notion of a woman surpassing a man in strength, intelligence, or anything really. It should, it really should, all the teachings, hours and pain spent drilling those ideals into his head shouldn't go to waste over one person. Over anything, really. Yet, the more time spent alone, wandering, he was beginning to see just how the Courier felt. Cast out, alone, with only her ideals and her opinion, a clean slate that no-one had the chance to mold into their own.

He would admit to himself, that he had taken to romanticizing the particulars of the battle that ultimately drove him out of the legion, out into the wastes. Was there some other way to cope, though? Alone, again. Now, neither a tribal or a legionnaire, just a man trying to survive with nowhere to truly belong. Who was to say that he didn't truly belong in the legion? It was a lost cause now, crumbling beneath it's own ideals, and besides that he was a coward, a deserter to them now, too. 

Vulpes felt no guilt over escaping death by a hair, he was better, faster, stronger than most of them. Caesar was dying, Lucius was an idiot and Lanius was bloodthirsty beyond control. It was better this way, perhaps, but he was still a coward in his own eyes. 

"Courier," He started, watching her finger twitch again the trigger. Nervous little thing, he thought, somehow destroyed an entire encampment of highly trained soldiers. Then again, she did it mainly with a fucking sword, while they had their rifles and unarmed training. A monster, wrapped in smooth skin, baked by the sun. 

Vulpes knew that he would never forget his time with the Legion, it took up too much of his life for that, and he would never understand his fascination with this woman who refused to submit, or be tamed in any way. Who put her life on the line for someone who shot her in the head, something he wished she had not done, if not only to see what sort of twisted fantasies lay beneath her surface. 

Perhaps, it was her convoluted way of thinking, of executing her goals, of the fire in her spirit that reminded him vaguely of Graham, that made her so damn attractive. 

"Vulpes," She shots back, her eyes flickered towards the shack he had been calling home for the past month or so, head tilted a slight bit to the side. She was listening, watching, expecting an ambush, and a little surge of pride hit him square in the chest. She was afraid, deep down, past her exterior, she was afraid of him, of the legion. 

"You always call me Vulpes," He said. For it was true, not a once in his recent or distant memory could he remember the woman calling him anything but such. 

The off topic, he was avoiding obvious topics that were just begging to be discusses, he would be vaguely pleasant at least, statement seemed to make her shoulders go even more rigid. 

"I don't know," She conceded, lowering her weapon slowly in a show of- trust, maybe? Misplaced trust in her mind, if it was. She'd let him go. It would have been easier to kill him now than then, but she could have done it either way. He, truly, should have been the one feeling uneasy. 

Come to think of it he didn't know her name, her real name. "It only seems fair for me to do the same," He said, implying that she should divulge the simple information to him.

"I don't remember my real name, so it hardly matters that my existence is entirely built on nicknames and titles,"

"How do you not remember?" And it's probably the most idiotic thing he has ever uttered in his lifetime, and he cannot find a way to make it her fault when she responds less than favorably. 

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it was the two shots to the head, but I can't be sure," She embodies venom with each syllable, her stare holes into him.

"That's not an answer,"

She rolled her eyes, crossed her arms over her chest. "You can call me Six, if you like,"

"That's not a name,"

"Neither is Vulpes, conventionally, but it's your name, isn't it?" Six sounded very nearly exasperated with him at this point. 

He cannot argue with that and it's infuriating. Vulpes took a deep breath, let the smell of desert sand and decay calm him, and continued. 

"Didn't you just return? Where could you possibly be headed now?" Vulpes pressed his back fully against the front of the house, the tin creaked loudly, and her lightly colored eyes follow his movement as he slid into a sitting position. She didn't imitate the languid position immediately, instead stepping closer, looking down at him. 

He had nothing to fear, he told himself, nothing at all, she was just that- a she, a woman. But not just any at all.  
She opened her mouth, thought better of whatever she was going to say and closed it again. He raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms, patiently.

"I-" She seemed to restrain herself from saying that comfortable, annoying phrase again. "I'm going home," Then she added, in a bitter tone, "Apparently," She took a seat beside him, shoulders curled in and legs crossed, the gun laid in her lap, her eyes dart towards her pip-boy. 

"Vegas is your home now," He watched her watch the sunset, the scarce wind brushing at her unruly black hair. 'You destroyed my faction, my purpose, to make it so, what do you mean it's not your home?' Something about the very notion that she had no reason to do with the Legion as she did, make it all the more maddening. 

She huffed, her shoulders shook. "I- it is, it's my home, but not- my home? You di- get it?" 

He scowled at her, not getting it and also realizing that she's been spending time with her would-be killer, Benny he thought it was? None of them ever called him by name, but she did. 

The Courier said nothing, she was waiting for him to either agree or disagree with her.

"No, I don't get it," He said through gritted teeth. She laughed, he snarled wordlessly in response, low in his throat, turning on her with rage burning low.

"I'm not laughin' at you, don't get your tail in a knot, fox-man," She shoved at his shoulder, gently, playful, like they were old friends or siblings catching up after separation. He doesn't find himself agreeing with that, this, but he wasn't disagreeing to it, either. She wasn't. . . very hostile, normally, was she? What a baffling- creature, even. He wasn't entirely sure she was all there, now. 

He thought he might be beginning to understand. 

"I just- I don't remember. Anything, at all from before. Vegas is- my home, the one I made for myself- because- I don't know, I like Vegas. I wanted to help, make it better, so it's- mine, now, I guess," She shook her head, trying to hide her face with her hair. She'd grown it out, he realized, instead of the slope of her scalp showing, she'd cut the other side to match in length. 

Vulpes had to admit. He liked the way she thought, sometimes. Rarely. She continued to talk.

"But- this person, another Courier, I think, knows things about the me that died back in Goodsprings, things that- It's going to haunt me for the rest of my life, if I don't put it to rest,"

"Why are you telling me all this?" Vulpes was skeptical of her motives, it sounded like something you would tell someone you trusted, or a dead man. 

"Because you asked," It's said in the same way a person would administer a slap to the face, her lips curled into a scowl. 

He considered her for a moment, all of her, down to the tight black leather armor he can't remember seeing her without. 

"You did not inform your comrades of this plan, did you?" He said, finally coming to a conclusion that made at least a little sense.

Six seemed almost bashful at his quickness to decipher what her problem was, and she nodded. 

"I'm walking into a carefully laid trap. It's better this way,"

"Why?" He'd thought her smarter than that, apparently, he was wrong. Or right, in some backwards way of thinking, yes, that was it.

Six smirked at him, "I don't know,"

They are silent for a long while, save for the sounds of their wilderness and soft breathing, long enough for the sun to dip behind the mountains and for the dark blues of night to take over the lonely sands. 

"You know," She said, like she'd been thinking about it for a while. "If you hadn't been a legion whelp, we could have been good friends. Something about you screams that we're alike,"

"I've come to the conclusion that I'm not a legionnaire, anymore, and can never be again," He stated dully, staring at her in a way that could be accusatory but really he lacked the energy. 

"Ah, but the damage has already been done," Six clambered up, brushing her hands off on her knees. "Uh- guess it was nice seeing you, and thanks, I feel a few pounds lighter knowing that someone knows where I'll be rotting,"

"You don't sound very confident that you will survive,"

She laughed, and it wasn't breathless, it had sharp edges that sunk into his brain like thorns. "I never have been. I don't have to be an optimist to be a hero," Six reached out for his hand to help him up, courteous and yet, he felt shamed by it, a nagging feeling tickling the back of his throat. He didn't accept it, considered it, but did not. 

Six shrugged, retracting her hand to rest on her hip, right above the weathered handle of her favorite weapon. Her eyes glint, "Heh. Maybe you can still learn, maybe you won't. Only time will tell, as is with most things," Seeing her from this angle, he realizes just how short and thin she is, not his normal preference for either a woman or a soldier, but she is both and that has slowly gone from disgraceful to something unidentifiable.

Perhaps they understood each other, better than they thought others could. Two people who had their whole lives taken away from them, and for a measly little chunk of power, authority, at that. 

The Courier did not tell him goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> Is it just me but the enemies to friends trope feels like it would apply to the Courier and Inculta. This is basically just me working out characterization of him since it's a little difficult? Interesting to write him, though.
> 
> I'm trying to post one work a day, for practice, but eh, it's not going to work out that way. For now, it's fine.


End file.
